Taken
by Ina Beana
Summary: Max is taken, and ends up with people who are trafficking mutants. Her being one of them. And these guys know what they're doing. What happens when there is no escape?
1. Chapter 1

_Taken_

By Ina Beana

The day I was taken, I was with my flock. My family. We were out and about in the Mall of America, when I was grabbed. I turned to hit the person in the face, but I felt a pinch in my neck and was consumed by darkness. Little did I know, the darkness would reveal to me a nightmare worse than all those I'd endured before.

I was unconscious for what felt like minutes, but I somehow instinctually knew was days. When I woke, I was in a cage, arms suspended by chains, cuts all over my body. It was dark and smelled like the sewer. I blinked my eyes, fighting sleep and realized there were others. We were in a place that I felt was underground. Something like a low ceiling hanger. And I convinced myself there was a way out. I believed that, until I took in my surroundings.

Swinging my head to the left, I saw a cage similar to mine right next to me. I fought to open my eyes and keep my head up, but some drug that coursed through my veins kept me from being close to functional. I listened as the sound of a door screeching open resounded through the hanger. Footsteps echoed down the hall. I stare at the ground, trying to find the strength to lift my head up, but I can't. Then, I see a pair of black boots stop in front of my cage.

The door of my cage swings open, and the boots step inside. The man squats down, and I see he is Russian.

He has some sort of gun slung across his back, and his clothes are camo and a red cap. He smirks as he puffs on a cigarette, blowing smoke straight into my face. His mustache quirks as he finds amusement in my disgusted expression.

He speaks, but I don't understand him. Then, I realize he's Russian.

"English you dumbass. I don't know your language." I growl at him. But my throat was so dry I sounded like I was whispering, and then I began coughing uncontrollably.

"There there young mutant. Take it easy. Besides, this is the nicest 'facility' you'll be in for a while." With that he brings a cup of water to my lips and I drink like it's the last thing I'll ever do.

I finish drinking and he throws the cup into a garbage can outside my cell.

He yells something to his colleagues, and they come and take my hands out of the chains, only to cuff my hands behind my back. They drag me out, because my legs seem to have ceased working, and after dragging me down the hall towards the door for a couple places, I realize who is in here with me. In the same situation as me.

Other experiments. Other "mutants".

I see all girls around my age with scales, fur, anything. No other bird girls, but they're all my age and all mutants. Seeing them makes me realize something.

I'm in serious trouble.

They're trafficking us.

And then the bag is over my head and I'm rushed out the door.


	2. Chapter 2

_Taken_

By Ina Beana

The door slams behind me, and my feet drag on the floor, surely being scraped bloody, as the men carrying me sprint through hallways and doorways until rushing up a staircase and then what sounds like outside. It's freezing, and I can feel the snow on the ground. My eyes drift close and my head swings around like I'm a bobble head. I feel so vulnerable like this. I have no control over my own body. How would I do anything at all?

It is deathly still outside, which makes me realize this situation is even worse than I previously assumed. I'm thrown into the back of what I assume to be a van, and I try to spit out some sort of comment on how cliché it is to be in a van, but I just start coughing uncontrollably again.

The men start muttering to each other in Russian, and then the bag is taken off of my head and a water bottle is shoved in my mouth. I drink it, savoring every drop as I gulp it all down. I'm so preoccupied that I don't feel the pinch in my neck.

All I know is that in a split second everything is black. Again.

I wake up on what seems to be a mattress thrown on the floor. It smells awful. Worse than the sewer smell from before. I open my eyes, and attempt to get up but I can't move at all. I'm fed up with this. I try harder, reminding myself I'm the Invincible Maximum Ride, but I can't even make my lips move in the slightest manner. I shift my eyes to take in my surroundings.

There are curtains hanging around me and they seem to separate me from what I assume to be other curtained areas like mine. I wish I could give more detail, but without being able to move my head, I'm useless and can't see any more than this curtain.

I keep my eyes open, but I just lay there.

And lay there.

And lay there.

After what seems to me around an hour, or at least I hope it was that long because a minute feels like five if you're not doing anything, I try to move again. I can move my lips very little, but it is still progress. I hope to let the drug wear off my me not doing anything so maybe I can overcome the drug quicker than they thought, and then escape to find my family.

My daydreams are interrupted my a scrawny man in a dirty business suit coming through the front curtain with a needle. He injects the liquid into my neck, and once again I am consumed by darkness.

I wake up again later, wondering how long it has been. For all I know, it could have been a month. The thing that scares (yes scares, people. It would scare you too.) me the most is that there are large chunks of time during which I have no idea what happened to me, or have any clue as to what might have happened. I shiver at the thought.

I'm in another cage now, I realize. And, wait! I shivered! I try wiggling my fingers, and succeed. I cautiously stand up, marveling at how I can finally perform these basic maneuvers with my body again. Now, to my escape.

The cage is small, but it is about 7 feet by 7 feet by 7 feet. A box made of something like iron bars. I try hitting one of the bars, and cry out in pain as I find out not only that the bars have tiny spikes on them, but I have been shocked by some unreasonable amount of electricity. I shake my hand as it stings mercilessly, and look around. This place has a high ceiling, and I look up to see it far far above my head, but when I look directly above my cage, there is wood. But, not sitting on my cage, slightly above it.

I look in front of me and gasp at what I have just realize.

There are shelves.

And these cages are on these shelves, which reach to the ceiling far above my head.

And I'm about 8 stories up from the ground.

And they have little elevators and things built in to escort mutants in and out of their cages.

This isn't just some sort of small trafficking business, but a large scale one.

As in I see hundreds of thousands in this expanse of space of which I cannot see the ending walls.

And now, I'm not scared.

I'm terrified.


End file.
